How to Control Who Sees Your Facebook Likes

While anyone who copies and pastes a Facebook update about hovering over your name to uncheck comments and likes qualiifies as misinformed, it’s clear there remains momentum behind an underlying sentiment. I’ve written two posts about the phenomenon (this one and this one) that continue to get steady traffic.

Will asking friends to uncheck comments and likes eliminate the fear that people can see your comments and likes? Nope. But you can control who sees your Facebook Likes.

Old Facebook Profile Directions

If you have the old Facebook profile and not the new Timeline, click “Edit Profile.” From there, click on any of the areas of interest (Arts and Entertainment, Sports, Activities and Interest) to edit who can see your likes of each category. On the final Activities and Interests tab, you can toggle who sees “Other Pages You Like.”

Don’t want anyone to see this stuff? Set them to “Only Me.” Personally, I think that’s a bit extreme, but you know what you want.

New Timeline Directions

If you have the new Timeline (which will soon be all of us), click on “Likes” from your Timeline.

At the top right, click “Edit.”

Once again, you will be able to toggle your audience for each individual category (Music, Books, Movies, Television, Games, Athletes, Spots Teams, Activities, Interests, Inspirational People and Other Pages You Like).

Let’s talk about how this is applied. All pages are categorized. If you go to the page for the Milwaukee Brewers, you’ll notice that it is categorized as “Professional Sports Team.” As you might imagine, this falls under “Sports Teams.”

In Conclusion

This may not satisfy the people who are paranoid about friends seeing their every comment and post like. But I’m guessing that most of said people aren’t controlling their likes in this fashion.

Please pass this on. Hopefully it will help settle down some who are copying and pasting that pesky status update.

About Jon Loomer

Jon Loomer is a digital marketing consultant with a unique perspective on social media. He was introduced to Facebook in 2007 while with the NBA (back before Pages) and has been using Facebook for business ever since. Stay in touch by liking his Facebook Page (Jon Loomer Digital).

Paisleystorm

I don’t understand the relevancy of copy and paste = people seeing your likes – could you explain? Am I missing something? Facebook Marketing is new to me.

Anonymous

Paisley — There’s a status update that has been copied and pasted for the past two months+ that asks friends to uncheck seeing their comments and likes so that such activity will not appear in their tickers. So the thought is that these people don’t want people to see their comments and likes (not always clear why), and there’s actually a way to control who sees your likes (the one in the copy/paste fails).

Mrakoni

What about the Likes timeline below the Favorites section. When you restrict who can see your Likes in the Favorites section, this setting does not transfer/apply to the Likes timeline and Everyone can see ALL your Likes. It doesn’t make sense. Did Facebook forget to link the two?

So is there anyway to control who sees when I comment on other pages??

http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer

When you comment on anything public, no. Whether it’s a friend who has a public wall or if you comment on a page (which is always public), that information will always be public.

D

if I “like” a comment made by a friend, will my friends (who are not also her friends) see her comment?

Kmkirby208

How can you keep someone who has put you on their Close Friend list (like your mom) see every single comment and every time you “like” someone’s post? I don’t want to delete her as a friend, but is there a way I can limit how much of my responding to other people’s posts she can see or how I can get off of her close friend list?

http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer

Whether or not you are on her Close Friends list is irrelevant when it comes to seeing your comments. Focus on the privacy settings of the piece of content you’re commenting on.

1) Is it Friends only? If so, is your mom also a friend of this person?
2) Is it Public? If so, your mom will see your comments.
3) Is it Friends of Friends? If so, your mom will see it since she has a friend (you) who is a friend of that person.

Steve407

So there is not way from keeping certain individuals who are your friends from seeing you likes and comments—since as someone said above, sometime because of the political or other nature of the like or comment, you really don’t want to show up in their “ticker” that you liked or commented,

Brian

you can change all your “like” categories under privacy to “Only Me”

Anwarul Alam Tonmoy

Put those certain individuals, who are your friends, in the “Restricted list”. You will find the “Restricted list” editing option in the Blocking section. People who are in the “Restricted list” will not see your any comment or like, public or otherwise. And they will be able to see only those posts and pictures that you make public.

Delton Childs

Thanks! I was searching all over the privacy and settings section!

http://www.facebook.com/jmiller503 Jeremy Miller

Doesn’t work. I have my Inspirational People set to public but it does not appear anywhere on my timeline.

http://www.facebook.com/swapnil.kocheta Swapnil Kocheta

What about the scenario:
I navigate through some 10-12 articles over various websites, I “Like” some of the articles and not “share” them.
I like them for my reading, I would have “shared” them if I wanted people to know.
The problem is not my privacy, the problem is other people’s timeline getting spammed by my posts.

This is one major issue to me and many others, please suggest If I am missing some really easy and trivial setting/point.

Ruthie

i think if those articles are “public”. All your friends who are subscribed to your comments and likes will see it on their newsfeed.

JohnW

The issue of “spamming” other people’s newsfeed on Facebook should be an important one. I understand that it is possible to “Share” posts to specific people or specific sub-grouping of friends. Sometimes, however, one “Likes” something (without giving a comment) simply to give feedback to another poster but – at the same time – one does not want the whole world to know that you liked something, like, say if it is of a politically sensitive nature. Is that possible? Is it possible hide the fact that you liked something from a specific group of your friends while letting another group see that you liked something?

michael

If I like a picture of a friend of mine..how I can control Who can see this…I’m not talking about a page .

KB

I don’t see “Likes” on my page as you show above. I see every other item shown, but not Likes. And FB doesn’t give you any way that I can find to keep your Likes from showing up on News Feed.

Ruthie

how about this scenario:
I have 2 friends who don’t know each other.
Friend 1 posts something on his timeline -not for public but for all his friends to see and it comes up on my news feeds and i clicked “like”. Will Friend 2 who is not Friend 1’s friend, see the post I liked from Friend 1? additional fyi: Friend 1 is subscribed to my likes and comments.